britain squares up to three of the world's top earning corporations who are accused of skirting around billions in taxes. from the love triangle to a pentagon problem the scandal that brought down cia chief david petraeus drags in america's commander in afghanistan with washington claiming all the while it knew nothing. and syria's new patchwork opposition fails to get unanimous backing among arab states and with doubts that the foreign form console use of the syrian people's interests.

it is a pleasure to have you with us here on our t.v. today sushi live in moscow hard pressed for cash and hurting from austerity britain is turning on the tax avoiders to help make up its budget shortfall and it's gunning for google amazon and starbucks first on the list the tax man wants to question them over earning billions in revenue in britain but only paying peppercorn taxes if any more on this i spoke just a bit earlier. these are three companies that dominate the u.k. economy they have billions of pounds worth of turnover the but it looks like they pay very little corporation tax to show for it and now employees are outraged by the fact that through very legal loopholes these companies that they say are acting in an immoral way are managing to dodge millions and billions of pounds worth of tax every single year and they want to try and put a stop to it now what about i mean the companies we talk about this being called

immoral because how did the companies money used to contribute so little or nothing to the treasury without actually breaking the law so certainly a big mystery well it's all a case of financial trickery rory it's about getting clever accountants that find countries with more favorable tax rates to base a u.k. headquarters and so for example google base themselves in the republic of violence that's way that that's where they sell their advertising space from starbucks are based in holland and amazon based in luxembourg so they manage to pay very little taxes through channeling their revenue through these countries are part of public reaction sure surely surely there must be a people of the public or even m.p.'s who are outspoken about this unfortunately rori for much of the ordinary public here in the u.k. it's just not funny anymore they say that you know austerity measures are taking hold that the public spending cuts in the public sent

a really making life difficult for people and we spoke to a few people out on the streets and this is what they told us if we're paying tax on things like. that we have to foot the bill for that i guess we're paying tax on coffee as well why should they not pay the tax that we. support i guess is up to something close to eighty that still it sees if you tend to take from this that i think it's fair that you still buy starbucks coffee it's not nice. this is some activists have already suggested a plan to highlight what they're calling this a moral behavior so if you have at least one of the companies or what exactly has been suggested so far. yes well this. cuts group these campaign is against austerity measures here in the u.k. they say that in december they're going to launch a national day of action against starbucks what they're going to do is they're going to occupy the multitude of starbucks coffee houses that we have here in

london you walk down the street you see them everywhere and they're going to make them into the homeless shelter they're going to make them into refuges into creches because that they say that starbucks have these immoral tactics and they need to give back to society so they're going to be occupying these coffee houses but indeed it's not just the anti cuts campaign as there's a general feeling among the british public that people want to boycott these new large amount multinational companies because of their immoral schemes in the way that they do just take from the public and very little back into the u.k. economy which as we know is struggling at the moment and really for people here in the u.k. very difficult to make ends meet at the moment so this is a topic that's rousing a lot of anger from the british public. because they're i spoke to her a bit earlier in the program here in britain hunts for tax avoiders to cover its deficit it's still lost territory all the way from portugal the german chancellor

personally reassured lisbon saying that pay cuts and tax hikes the painful will save it at the end of the day however an angry public is not buying her optimism. or heartache for washington having lost the director of the cia to an affair last week risks losing its top commander in afghanistan to the same scandal that general john allen has been accused of sending inappropriate e-mails to jill kelley she was one of the women whose implication that. to the downfall of one of america's most distinguished officers a moron the scoundrel now without these guy in a church you can standing by for us now in the washington d.c. studio gynae good to see you what stage is this intriguing scandal now that. worried this scandal is just getting worse and reminds more of a t.v. drama possibly with many episodes the lead is the episode of the investigation into the affair between former cia director general petraeus and his biographer is the

revelation of another extramarital affair now between the top american and nato commander in afghanistan general john allen and a woman named jill kelley the very woman who officials say general portrays his mistress paula broadwell saw as a rival for her affections with general petraeus and wrote the threatening e-mails to that jill kelley was the woman who opened this can of worms when she went to the f.b.i. in the first place and asked them to investigate the whole resting in autumn is the e-mails that she'd been receiving and the investigation led to paula broadwell's new york box and apparently her mailbox revealed her affair with a former cia director a few words about god i feel like i'm telling you exciting at a gossip t.v. show but reality can be more implausible jill kelley a mother of three a housewife living in florida they've apparently been friends with the patrice's for for years as she turned out to be not the most intelligent woman because when

she asked the f.b.i. to look into the harassing e-mails that she'd been receiving she somehow forgot that her own mailbox was also full of quote unquote in appropriate e-mails from the commander of u.s. forces in afghanistan general john allen also married officials said they were from somewhere from twenty to thirty thousand pages of those e-mails of course they did not reveal the content of those e-mails they just said there was quote. inappropriate communication between the two well you know going to a lot of people that they do love a juicy sex scandal just think back to the days of bill clinton and monica lewinsky however this one has gone far beyond the borders of a standard sex scandal if the resignation of the cia director hasn't stopped the fallout will it all end. quite hard to tell this may sound like a huge manyfold family drama but it's more serious than that under military law

adultery here can be acquired and punishment can be time in prison although general allen will remain the commander in afghanistan defense secretary panetta said he had asked president obama to delay the general's nomination to be the commander of american forces in europe and the supreme allied commander of nato so john allen would be the third again his staying general that well from grace so abruptly and shockingly too many first it was general stanley mcchrystal resigned when a magazine quoted him saying unflattering things about the administration that general petraeus over a woman and now general general john allen that is three of the biggest names in the war in afghanistan it's all right and he's a gunner to go there live in washington thank you. when the mean time of my five intelligence officer says that a patrol is down full could actually be the result of infighting within the intelligence community. it's beginning to look like a very well written drama really interesting sense that knowledge bomber has been

elected for his time or one second term they can usually use the cream to sweep the old regime senior generals who sort of move through the revolving door of the military position with the intelligence this is one of the points it took him to get much coverage of our triumph and that is the fact that he has been very much on a really cool really pushing for the idea that there should be some sort of military action against iraq so there may well have been some sort of maneuvering behind the scenes by other senior intelligence officers to try and get rid of someone that he was he is not tied into his peddling a line which they don't agree with and which undermines their national and state are going to. hear it out he will keep you updated on high stakes a love story unfolds but there you go is a bit of over the story if you like at r.t. dot com there's a poll there are getting your opinion what you think of the timing of all of this let's see how the numbers add up with this hour from our two dot com there are so

far shows that just over a third thinking the scandal is part of a manufactured effort to prevent betrayers from testifying on the benghazi killings a quarter an hour saying it's part of a drive to really hold the military's leadership at this hour believing the election was at the root of it all and the affair was hushed up until obama was reelected. same number see no link to that ultimately it was his own mistake you can have your say right now after dot com just head over to the home page. ten minutes past the hour moscow time and the civil conflict in syria sending strong ripples across the border a report from lebanon which is turned into a sectarian power because of the bloody civil war ongoing on its doorstep. plus tightening the screws on kurdish rebels wearing up a revival of capital punishment more of these stories and others after a show. back.

flying north with me in this old soviet work or so the helicopter is dr van amir brodsky and his team from the region's medical aviation service we head across ever more barren tundra higher and higher into russia's arctic far north until eventually we see our landing spot with the arrival of this tiny village after crossing hundreds of kilometers of snow a wilderness as a boy here suffering from favre and the doctors are going to see what they can do. inside a small building not one but two babies and their parents are waiting for us the doctors inspect them but can't make a diagnosis and decide to bring them to a regional hospital for better can spread lana doesn't like taking her baby away from home but she's been before and agrees to go that's the usual practice with

those who live in atlanta they keep mothers with their newborns in hospital for a month. on the way back another stop to check on the health of some native minutes reindeer herders out in the tundra it can take many hours to reach the nearest village so a medical problem simply fixed here in the tent that. they used to be but now we can go to civilize places so we call for emergency help. back at hospital other patients helped by the air ambulance are being treated the service costs fourteen million dollars a year to run and there has been controversy with some claiming that locals exaggerate or make up health problems and use the helicopters as a free taxi service accusations landed near firmly dismisses your brother is not true usually the calls are perfectly justified sometimes we even reproach locals for waiting too long before calling us he's been working as a day. to now for forty three years but let him in as confident the diva now after

he retires his helicopter doctors will remain a lifeline to the peoples of the russian far north. if you're just joining us welcome to the program here on arts here on rory sushi and full international backing for syria's rebels potentially meaning more foreign arms and cash it something the newly formed opposition coalition is struggling to achieve the gulf monarchies who pushed for the new set up rushed to proclaim it as the sole syrian people's representative to the wider arab league bloc doesn't see that that way middle east correspondent paula slayer has this report. the six gulf states have formally recognized the new syrian coalition as the official representative of the syrian people the foreign minister of qatar has said that

this recognition will remove obstacles that will ultimately be able to secure arms for syrian rebels the coalition does look set to set up a so-called government in exile if indeed this happens this will have the backing of western as well as arab states there are fears that this could set up a libya style scenario what we saw in libya was opposition fighters sitting themselves up as an alternative government that got the backing of the international community and ultimately led to nato airstrikes and foreign intervention so there are concerns that that might happen here in syria there was also a number question about just how feasible all this proposition group is really we're looking at a patchwork of various organizations here it is made up of rebel fighters as well as dissidents and people from all backgrounds and political affiliations it has been marred by bickering over the past few weeks and months indeed this is an

organization that does not have internal unity what is important is that the arab league that is notably one of the most important bodies in the arab world has hesitantly welcomed this new coalition it does say that it is a primary negotiator but it has not gone as far as to say that it is the legitimate representative of the syrian people want to pull a slitter right there will a political analyst ali rockwell says the syrians would never want an opposition formed under goal funded and pressure to grab power. i'm glad to see that this collection of corrupt dictatorships is instructing the syrian people as to who their representatives ought to be how about the representatives of the saudi arabian people of the bahraini and people or people of qatar or charge of the arrest of these dictatorships so what would an outrage that they're the course they're just a subsidiary of the pentagon and of the cia this is part of the long term plot by

the u.s. by britain by france by turkey by israel and i'm no fan of assad i might say but. things are much worse after gadhafi in libya they're going to be much worse if they succeed in overthrowing assad let's opposition group was trained in turkey at various american air force bases there are many of them are libyan al-qaeda types other from other countries they're not syrians they're foreign fighters whatever is wrong with assad i think that the people of syria tend not to want outsiders to be telling them what to do they fear these so-called rebels just as much as they fear their own government and my guess is they don't want foreigners occupying and running their country and a serious bloody standoff is exposed deep political and sectarian cracks in neighboring lebanon with the gun battle springing up daily in the northern part of the state catherine reports from the nation hit by fierce clashes between ongoing warring groups. they share

a determination to fight to the death but this isn't syria it's lebanon the conflict has crept across the border leading to death and destruction here in tripoli we're standing here you can see the almost complete destruction of a home this is literally the front line of the. neighborhood in tripoli right across the street out the window that's the neighborhood where the largely sunni community have been has been clashing with the largely allawi community that is based here it's actually not very safe for us to stand here we've been told by the owner of this apartment that they're still taking casualties in the fighting could really flare out at any moment out of range of the snipers we speak to the homeowner and allawi militia man the misery has only hardened his resolve to fight against neighbors who he says pose a mortal threat. these people have one objective and that is to have an islamic emirate in the north and militia organizations like hezbollah give up arms as long as thought exists. this is been a flashpoint for years

a sunni stronghold next door to an alawite community but strife in syria has unleashed new sectarian tensions leading to the worst fighting since lebanon's civil war. is the spokesperson for the arab democratic party which has its own loyal militia here in. the. regime falls that this area will turn into a dangerous product for this is what we're trying to avoid. i asked him whether disarming might be an option to avoid more bloodshed. we're not afraid while we were filming the lebanese army was overseeing a shaky cease fire but the sandbags are still out awaiting the next battle we're in the neighborhood as you can see behind me that is the area where the gunfire was coming down here people have been killed on both sides of this. this is one of the fighting positions this street. reacher has a sunni militia here in tripoli as bubble to ben

a slum to have you find when these guns. showing off his guns he says he's ready to use them again at a moment's notice. we are ready to defend ourselves and to fight fire with fire sheikh mansour he accuses the syrian government of fermenting violence against the sunni's and that's why he says support for the uprising goes far beyond empathy. systems to the free syrian army then would do it within our capabilities isn't that really if it is possible to give them a gun and some bullets then we're happy. however the syrian war plays out it's clear that the outcome will have repercussions far beyond its borders in tripoli the battle lines have been drawn and neither side seems willing to back down lucy calf and r.t. tripoli lebanon. now turkey is considering bringing back the death penalty stance of believe it seems to tackle violent kurdish separatism bullish capital punishment

a decade ago when it launched its attempts to join the european union more on this let's cross live to sort of to choose the foreign affairs editor of chronicles magazine and it's written extensively on turkey's part. it's good to see you today sir thank you for coming on the program do you think of restoring the death penalty it would do anything to quell the rising kurdish separatist attacks and why now talk to us about timing as well. well first of all is aware that he has overplayed his hand musically syria and that domestically he's now encountering increasing the position more than seventy percent of turks are totally opposed to any form of intervention in syria's affairs and they think he's trying to appeal to the nationalist element by actually. showing that he doesn't particularly care about what the european union says or does let's not forget that the evolution of the death penalty was one of the preconditions for the princes of turkey getting closer

to brussels so he's really trying to put together some kind of the mystic coalition that will propel him to the presidential election of twenty fourteen at a time when he is all the policy no problems with neighbors allies in tatters but the problem is really of his own making he has overplayed his hand with that he might be a case of sending a fairly clear message to brussels in that case regarding the whole death penalty and abolishing the capital punishment as well as you just said was one of the key conditions for turkey to join the e.u. he's talking now all the concerned about getting the blocs membership do you think . edgar's rhetoric as of late has clearly indicated that he now sees turkey as a regional power in its own right in the one that will not necessarily adjust its policies to the requirements or wishes of brussels but it is probably more serious than that i think that he has realized that when push comes to shove some of the

key countries in the european union including germany in profits will oppose. the extension of the block which we already have the expansion for teague to include close to eighty million people who are increasingly seen as unassimilable in terms of culture in terms of political tradition in these situations so i think it's cloying our project himself as the leader of a newly resurgent turkey as a regional power in her own right incredibly one hundred years after the first first welcome ward ostensibly paid to turkey in europe it is actually a rare example in history that a power makes the come back of the kind that they're going to be as engineered over the past decade but as i said earlier i think that with syria he has created more problems than he can deal with right now not least because bashar has responded by

encouraging turkish the religious sort of kurdish guerillas in turkey and she is now very keen to establish the kind of domestic consensus that propelled the a.k.p. to nick fury on three occasions over the past ten years the thought of going to one of the time for one more quick question here but out of the one is also considering a constitutional reform so that the country's a parliamentary system becomes a presidential. because he sees himself as a new channel artichoke with the agenda that is there medically of those who what was the general was doing a hundred years ago in other words he wants to have a free hand for the evolution of the remnants of the channelise legacy which is already well underway not least by completely demolished in the power of the army as a political tactic in other words he sees himself as the end of the general doing was that of generals counter work one hundred years after turkey seemingly was certain

parts of being a regular european constitutional republic. foreign affairs editor from chronicles magazine thank you very much for coming on r.t. today thank you. for the german chancellor received an angry greeting in portugal where she came to support austerity measures gripping the country enraged crowds demonstrated in the streets blaming angela merkel for the financial pain they continue to go through as r.t. sarah for now reports many question why something that failed in other countries should be promised to work in portugal. these measures have been killing is doing to give us no future it's only for cattle and employment and misery so many people are becoming desperate and it's almost like a visceral reaction a visceral reaction to these measures people that are getting angrier and angrier angela merkel says it supports the goal may have been as a sign of support for the scene daily to serve to highlight the.

protestors message loud and clear way testers standing off against the royal family become very familiar protest gatherings in europe but perhaps not so familiar the portugal here until recently have been much more tolerant of the strict austerity measures that have been imposed on them but as you can see here portugal's patience is really running out with record levels of unemployment now at fifteen percent and the country about enter its third year of recession is becoming apparent that the country persons had hate could be a southern european success story is now struggling to survive we talk about cuts to jobs we talk about the search measures what does it mean to be living through that right now in portugal it means they don't see any future for my child we are getting angry because the government don't care.

about people put two goals not alone of course these stories of hardship are all across the usa in brussels finance ministers and desperately trying to come up with a way to pull greece back from the brink of bankruptcy with athens having just approved yet another round of cuts this is the cause of the speech the front so the greek political class like the rest of the year. in a sense i think chris is a. prisoner of the you're not you're watching this i do. exerts such a power over people that they are prepared to do things which by any rational measure obviously counterproductive in order to preserve the european project the euro in particular they are determined to do everything to keep the single currency intact even to destroy their own country and with greece's economic straits people

are questioning just why portugal must follow the same ported rates the same many economists say it's deemed to end in failure. r.t. there's been in half an hour's time it's my colleague kevin owen for now though breaking the set sheds light on why some u.s. states want to go it alone. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm charged welcome to the big picture. wealthy british style. sometimes.

markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. resistance is not our politics but our culture. is couldn't. on its own. cultures of resistance on our team.

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